Participants in a global climate march in New York City. (photo: Kena Betancur/Getty Images
The
Standoff Between Trump and Green Groups Just Boiled Into War
By Darryl Fears and Juliet
Eilperin, The Washington Post
01 April 17
The
first shots have been fired in what’s likely to be a long, bitter war over the
environment between conservationists and President Trump.
It
started Wednesday when a broad coalition of groups sued the Trump
administration in federal court, barely 24 hours after the president signed an
executive order that lifted a moratorium on new coal leases on federal land.
Earthjustice,
the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for
Biological Diversity and others call the directive illegal because it allows a
massive area of land to be disrupted without any federally required study of
the potential environmental impact.
They
were joined by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana, whose president said the
tribe would bear the brunt of the decision to resume leasing. More than 425
million tons of coal are located near its reservation at the Decker and Spring
Creek mines.
On
Thursday, environmentalists also challenged the administration’s decision to
move forward with the Keystone XL oil pipeline. This second federal suit claims
the State Department relied on “an outdated and incomplete environmental impact
statement” to comply with a 60-day decision deadline set by Trump.
The
president has said both actions were taken to harness American energy and
create jobs. Native communities fear the changes will come at their expense.
“The
Nation is concerned that coal mining near the Northern Cheyenne Indian
Reservation will impact our pristine air and water quality, will adversely
affect our sacred cultural properties and traditional spiritual practices and
ultimately destroy the traditional way of life that the Nation has fought to
preserve for centuries,” said L. Jace Killsback, president of the Northern
Cheyenne.
Environmental
groups have been raising money and preparing to battle Trump since his
election, and the fight over coal is expected to be the first of many. The
president already has moved on a campaign promise to dismantle parts of the
federal government, with recent proposals to dramatically cut funding for the
Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, the nation’s
steward for public lands.
“No
one voted to pollute our public lands, air or drinking water in the last
election, yet the Trump administration is doing the bidding of powerful
polluters as nearly its first order of business,” Jenny Harbine, a lead
attorney for the activist group Earthjustice, said Wednesday. “Our legal system
remains an important backstop against the abuses of power we’ve witnessed over
the course of the past two months.”
The
coalition may have company in its legal challenge. Several governors and
attorneys general have indicated a willingness to take the Trump administration
to court over the new executive order and other environmental policies.
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said in an interview that he was prepared to
sue if the EPA revokes the waiver it granted his state in 2012 to set more
stringent fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built for model
years 2022 to 2025.
Trump
recently announced that the agency would revisit the federal carbon standards
for that fleet, prompting California to announce it would press ahead with its
own rule.
“I
fought the Bush administration as California’s attorney general and will
continue defending the California law,” Brown said, adding that climate change
ranks as “an existential threat” that must be addressed. “Not out of any
political position, but in recognition that the world is at risk and that the
lives of real people are endangered.”
Washington
Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who successfully challenged the administration’s first
immigration executive order, said he and his state’s attorney general are
assessing whether to return to court in light of the new executive order on
climate. “We’re looking at some litigation options,” he said.
At a
recent conference, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) emphasized the importance of
preserving public lands. “As governor of a state with millions of acres of
public land,” he said, “I will not stand idly by if Congress or other outside
special interests try to erode the birthright of all Americans.”
But
Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have powerful allies, including Utah
Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R), whose office sued over the Obama administration’s
Clean Power Plan to regulate greenhouse gases and ripped the rule that led to a
moratorium on coal leases.
“Utah
and many public-land and energy-producing states think that the Clean Power
Plan was a significant overreach. It was really designed to kill off
carbon-based fuels and particularly coal,” he said recently. “The standards
that they were trying to put in place, there is not even technology that allows
you to meet those standards.”
Under
the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, established in 1970,
conservationists and other organizations can fight any government attempt to
take administrative action without following proper administrative procedures.
“These regulations are binding on all federal agencies,” according to a NEPA
fact sheet on the EPA’s website. “The regulations address the procedural
provisions … and the administration of the NEPA process, including the
preparation of environmental impact statements.”
Following
Trump’s action, Zinke announced Wednesday that he signed two “secretarial
orders to advance American energy independence.” One was to “foster responsible
development of coal, oil, gas and renewable energy on federal and tribal
lands.” The lengthy statement did not mention NEPA or the environmental study
it requires.
In
Montana, that’s where the coalition lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in
Great Falls took aim. “In repealing the moratorium … the Secretary of the
Interior, Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management opened the door
to new coal leasing and its attendant consequences without first performing an environmental
review.”
Under
the Obama administration, Interior worked for more than a year to evaluate the
impact of coal mining and to determine if the benefit was worth the
environmental harm. With U.S. power plants using less coal, companies have laid
off workers and entered into bankruptcy proceedings. And with abundant coal
reserves expected to last two decades even without new mining, the department
decided on a moratorium.
The
decision was controversial in Wyoming, Montana, Nevada and other states that
rely on coal revenue mined on federal land, but it was not made without a
scientific review, public hearings, comments and a written rule that takes
months to finalize. Trump and Zinke’s decisions were made virtually with the
stroke of a pen, their challengers claim.
Zinke
said his action aligned with the president’s “vision for energy independence
and bringing jobs back to communities across the country.” He said that “for
far too many local communities, energy on public lands has been more of a
missed opportunity and has failed to include local consultation and
partnership.”
His
detractors say Zinke is guilty of the same, acting without consulting
scientists and environmentalists and without following the proper
administrative steps.
Before
the department acted in late 2015, the federal coal program that leases land
for mining had not been reviewed in nearly 40 years. Over that time, studies
showed that coal-fired fuel produced a dirty mix of particulate matter and
chemicals such as mercury, benzene and radium that cause respiratory illnesses
and heart disease.
As
part of the Obama administration’s review, the Bureau of Land Management was
examining whether the program could ensure that land damaged by mining could be
restored by companies, commitments to lower pollution could be met and
companies could continue to profit. Trump’s order ended that assessment.
“The
moratorium was a common-sense policy move to fix our federal coal program, and
Trump’s actions likely mean that program will stay broken,” Shannon Hughes, who
works in the climate and energy program at WildEarth Guardians, said in a
statement. “Managing public lands and public interest to bail out energy
executives is nothing short of corruption. A moratorium won’t help a dying coal
industry, but it will help its CEOs line their pockets.”
From
southeastern Montana, Art Hayes is tracking the Trump administration’s action
with keen interest. His 9,000-acre ranch, which has been in his family since
the late 1800s, is in an area that gets only about 12 inches of rain a year and
depends on water from the Tongue River for irrigation. It’s also downstream
from the Decker Mine, which has pending lease applications that could move
forward now that the moratorium has been lifted. Hayes worries about the safety
of his water supply.
“We
totally depend on it,” Hayes said Wednesday. “The river is everything. … We
don’t have much water here, and it’s precious.”
C 2015 Reader Supported News
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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